Hyperterminal

Inspired by the likes of Ferry Corsten and Paul Van Dyk, John produced his first pure trance track in early 1999, called "Thirty One", and at the same time came up with the artist name Hyperterminal for it (intended to sound futuristic, but not one of John's best artist names it has to be said!). The track proved popular among his friends at the time, and John soon produced a follow-up, "One Horse Race". Both these tunes featured on the Frantik Music compilation The Yellow Album (1999).

The trademark Hyperterminal sound took shape later in the year when John acquired a Roland JX-305 synth. Using it's warm, fat synth sounds, John resurrected the Hyperterminal name in summer 1999 with "Angel Song", and "Seeking You" was produced a couple of months later. By December 1999, "Seeking You" was proving a popular track in John's DJ sets and it was chosen to be one of the first tracks put online by Frantik in it's MP3 experiement. This was a great success, and by summer 2000, "Seeking You" had featured in MP3.com's and Vitaminic's download charts. In early 2000, John also produced two new Hyperterminal tracks, "Stranger In Paradise" and "The Dream", which also proved popular online, and which were provisionally signed (along with "Seeking You") to an American record label. "Seeking You" was eventually pressed as a white label in the U.S., but never made it to full release. Another American connection during 2000 was made with trance producers Hypnotik and Mayfair, who remixed "Destination" and "Seeking You" respectively.

In late 2000, John was on the verge of signing several Hyperterminal tracks to UK label Rough Diamond, who had shown an interest in John through his hard house material as Silverknight. By this time, "Destination", "Distressed Rhombus"' and "Fanfare"' had already been online, as well as a remix of "Thirty One"'. John initially chose these four tracks as the line-up for his debut vinyl release, the Hyperterminal E.P. The white label promos of the Hyperterminal E.P. went out in early 2001, and the vinyl release came in the autumn, with "Hemisphere" going to number 3 the Daily Star's Essential Clubbing chart on 22 November 2001. The remix of "Thirty One", which featured on the white label promos, was replaced by "Hemisphere" for the final release as "Thirty One" skipped badly due to faulty mastering. Incidentally, the version of "Distressed Rhombus" is also different on the promos to the final release - the original 2000 mix features on the promo and a remastered, longer version from 2001 features on the release.

While all this was happening, John was working on the follow up to the Hyperterminal E.P., and "'Stay With Me"' and "Voyager"' (2001) featured on the second Hyperterminal release. The third release was more successful, with "'Ascension" and "The Transformation" (produced in December 2001) coming out on white label in 2002 and going on to full release. "Ascension" was played three weeks in succession by Dave Pearce on Radio One in Autumn 2002.

Although a few more tracks were produced, the temporary decline in popularity of melodic trance music (probably thanks to some rather cheesy cover versions) in 2003/04 proved the nail in the coffin for Hyperterminal, with John going on to pursue other musical projects. John last produced as Hyperterminal in Spring 2003. In Autumn 2003, John wrote his first JMD track, in a similar trance style but with a harder edge.

The unsigned original Hyperterminal tracks from 1999 and 2000 remained online until January 2003 when they were taken off the internet, shortly before the demise of the original MP3.com. "Seeking You" topped the Vitaminic trance and dance/electronica charts several times between 2000 and 2002, and even once became the most downloaded track on the whole Vitaminic site, on 28th October 2001.

In 2006, the Hyperterminal name returned to the spotlight in a different genre, when freeform producer Lost Soul remixed the 2000 track "Stranger In Paradise". Two of the original Hyperterminal tracks from 1999 also received a tenth anniversary revamp in 2009 - "Thirty One" and "Seeking You" - with a sound that keeps the original melodic trance vibe but adds contemporary synths, reverb and sidechaining.